On Tuesday, the chairman of Public Accounts Committee, Bamidele Salam issued an ultimatum to the Securities and Exchange Commission and Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC). As revealed, the committee gave both commission 21-days to account for the N45 billion operating surplus unaccounted for from 2007 to 2021.
He made this known on Tuesday during the committee’s public hearing on leakages of government revenue. He said “We have written SEC on December 20, 2022, intimating the commission of our computed liability for the period 2007–2021, and the said liability amounted to N45,013,010,229 only.”
Similarly, a representative of FRC, Bello Aliyu also stated that “Up till now, we have not received any response from them, so as far as we are concerned, they have accepted the liability, and that is what we have recorded against the commission.”
Aliyu said that SEC has not made any attempt to reconcile the figure as contained in the report since 2022. He added that by law, the balance of any operating surplus should be paid into the consolidated revenue fund of the Federal Government in less than one month of the statutory deadline for publishing any corporation account.
Mr Lamido Yuguda, the Director General, SEC, has reacted to the allegation. He said that the commission had reconciled its operating surplus with the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation (OAGF).
“I think if the FRC had actually done a little more work, they would have really seen from the OAGF all the efforts that we have made to reconcile the surplus figure from 2007 when the FRC came into being.”
However, the committee chairman, Salam noted that FRC was empowered by law to ensure that all agencies and government corporations listed in its enabling Act behave responsibly with regard to remittances and management of their revenues.
He said “I don’t know why SEC is more comfortable with the Accountant General Office, and I don’t want to insinuate anything, but I want to assure the FRC that from now on, all that will stop.
”We are going to ensure that all agencies make FRC the major body of government that should ensure compliance with the provisions of the act,” He added
